Karen Carpenter and the Show Biz Crab Bucket

What the hell is that disk 

in the background?

My god, this is fascinating. I had only seen brief bits of Karen Carpenter playing the drums, but I had no idea she was this kind of virtuoso. Coming from a pretty hardcore musical family (and being a former musician myself), I can tell you that as players the Carpenters were drop-dead pros with impeccable chops. 

"Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft"

As we sat and waited for the Malthusian remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still (with Keanu Reeves as Klaatu and one-time Secret Sun siren Jennifer Connelly as Helen), I was reminded of a very strange episode in pop history, when the squarest musical combo to walk the face of the planet spent a king's ransom recording a telepathic invocation to authoritarian space messiahs. 

Now Discovery Channel does the "UFO Thing"

Sensing a pattern here? UFOs Over Earth premieres this week. I haven't had time to check it out, but I'm not holding my breath for it being anything but a bunch of ad hoc arguments, professional kooks and establishment-mouthpiece "skeptics" getting the last word.

Sirius Star: As Seen From Space (Updated)

 

 Here's an odd little twist to the Sirius Star drama- an inexplicable article in the Guardian showing the tanker as seen from a space satellite. First the Dubai ritual, now this. 

Space/Gods: Eleven to Heaven

We continue our inexorable voyage into a brave new world, where ancient myths and futuristic technology walk hand in hand. A world where the last secular pretenses of the 20th Century give way to a restoration of the oldest world order imaginable. 

"Behold, Atlantis Rising!"

I am absolutely speechless: "Dubai has thrown a spectacular light show to celebrate a new $1.5bn marine-themed resort built off the Gulf coast on an artificial island in the shape of a palm tree. Organisers claimed that the fireworks display for the $20m party could be seen from space," the BBC says.

Sirius Star: ISS Unveiled

The hits just keep on coming. Today is the 10th Anniversary of the launching of the Zarya rocket, which kicked off the International Space Station, or ISS.

I was lucky enough to be at mission control in Moscow's Star City when the Russians launched the first stage of the International Space Station (ISS). They called it Zarya, which means Dawn. 

The enterprise itself was meant to be just that - a new dawn for human space exploration. Moments after the launch, the then head of Nasa, Dan Goldin, said: "Within a few years, the brightest star ever will appear in the sky." He said it would be a sign of hope because nations who had once fought each other had now come together to use their ingenuity, not to blow up humanity, but to make a better world.- BBC

Goldin. Dawn. Gotcha.

Astronaut Theology: Let's Play a Game

I'm always looking for ways to be The Secret Sun more exciting and interactive. One of the ideas I came up with is "The Allegory Game." The point of this game is to look at a particular sequence in a film and see if in fact it's actually an allegory of something else, something not part of the external narrative. 

Seizing "The Sirius Star"

A lot of you have commented on the big story of the day- the seizing of the Sirius Star oil tanker (which is 330 metres long) by Somali pirates (don't forget Somalia is next to Kenya, where the family of our "serious man for serious times" Barack Obama hails from).

 

Jack Kirby's Entheogenic Space Odyssey... in 1958

Have fungi, but be careful...

Secret Sunbather Ned Sonntag sent me this vintage page from the great Jack Kirby, from a comic called Blast-Off, published in 1965. But the story itself was actually drawn in 1959, for the same title (Race to the Moon) that Kirby wrote his prophetic Face On Mars story. 

Stairway to Sirius: Death and Restoration, Part I

Left to Right: The Solar Obelisk, Heavenly Beam, 

Stairway to Sirius and Goddess Columbia.

A hawk-eyed Secret Sun reader caught this news story:

The Moon Sacrificed to the Sun

While the excitement over the election wanes, the Mediastorm returns to its usual diet of madness and atrocity:

(CNN) -- Eight people were arrested Tuesday, one on a charge of murder, in connection with the fatal shooting of a woman at a remote Louisiana campsite during what police say was an initiation ceremony for the Ku Klux Klan. The woman, whose identity has not been confirmed, was recruited over the Internet to join the Klan by the suspects, said Capt. George Bonnett of the St. Tammany Parish Sheriff's Office.

Yahooccultism: The Oannes Brothers

Did the boys at Yahoo get drunk last night and do MadLibs type semiotics? I literally LOL'd when that little montage popped up on my screen ("Sauron takes young starlet as bride/sacrifice"). 

Space is an Altar: Eye See You!

Looks a lot like Sauron, no?

"Using the latest techniques in space technology, astronomers at NASA and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory used direct-imaging techniques to capture pictures of four newly discovered planets orbiting stars outside our solar system..."

 

Stairway to Sirius: Look at It This Way

Here's an antique Masonic Tracing Board depicting the Stairway to Sirius. The juxtaposition of the twin columns of Jachin and Boaz and their proximity to the Stairway is eerily reminiscent of the pre-9/11 Manhattan skyline that we looked at earlier...

A Very Sirius Election: Enough Already!

The Alaska governor said 2012 was too far off for her to decide whether she would run for the US presidency...

 In a wide-ranging interview with Fox News, the 44-year-old said: "I'm like, OK, God, if there is an open door for me somewhere, this is what I always pray, I'm like, don't let me miss the open door. Show me where the open door is."

The mother-of-five added: "And if there is an open door in 2012 or four years later, and if it is something that is going to be good for my family, for my state, for my nation, an opportunity for me, then I'll plough through that door."- BBC

Subtle as a sledgehammer, that woman is....

A Very Sirius Election: Bringing it All Back Home

Angelic beings descend to Earth from Sirius 

in classic Masonic Tracing Board

Ancient Egyptian historians will tell you quite soberly that for thousands of years the gods themselves walked the earth and ruled their land. When the gods left, the Throne of Horus was created. The so-called "Horus Kings," took the gods' place until the establishment of the First Dynasty.

A Very Sirius Election: Phoenix Phlashback

Let's go back to this enigmatic shot of the Phoenix-on-Globe taken at the end of Obama's victory speech. I had almost forgotten there was quite a brouhaha among the far right conspiracy crowd during the Clinton years, pertaining to a similar brooch that Hillary and some other prominent Washington women wore.

 

A Very Sirius Election: The Phoenix Goes Down

Another Mars probe, another mysterious system failure. Nazca, er, I mean NASA, has reported that the Phoenix has gone dead. Soon after another Phoenix went down in flames. 

As above, so below, eh?

A Very Sirius Election: Stairway to Sirius

In the first installment of this series, we looked at the incorporation of elements of the hieroglyph for Sirius in the McCain/Obama campaign logos. Next we looked at what certainly appears to be a move to symbolically tie Sarah Palin to Isis and Sirius, starting with her speech at the RNC. 

What we must remember is that the very term "president" comes from ancient ritual, as does his "inauguration."